


Captain America and Bucky vs. Christmas Cookies

by Paraxdisepink



Category: Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Baking, Christmas, Domestic Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-25
Updated: 2013-12-25
Packaged: 2018-01-06 03:15:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1101730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paraxdisepink/pseuds/Paraxdisepink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve and Bucky try making Christmas Cookies for a charity event.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Captain America and Bucky vs. Christmas Cookies

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mwestbelle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mwestbelle/gifts).



> Christmas-themed Tumblr prompt

"They’re growing," Bucky peers in quiet alarm into the oven. He turns to look at Steve like he’s supposed to know what to do about it.

"What do you mean?" Steve is too busy sifting powdered sugar for the icing, and making a white dusty mess.

"They’re not keeping their shape. Look."

He opens the oven and takes out the hot cookie sheet with his metal hand, without a mitt. He’s right; their Christmas trees and wreaths are puffy and distorted.

"Do you think we cut them too thick?"

Bucky slams the cookie sheet on the counter. They’re golden brown around the edges and done anyway.

"How the hell should I know? I’ve never baked anything before. We should have just bought cookies."

Steve gives him a look. “They’re for orphaned kids, Buck. Most of them have never had anything homemade.”

"Yeah well these are just gonna scare them. You know Stark’s got his army of chefs making his contribution, right?"

Steve’s tempted to give Bucky the old ‘if Stark sticks his head in the toilet is that a reason we should do it too?’ Instead, he just sifts more sugar and says, “Roll the next batch out thinner. I bet that’s the problem.”

Bucky gets another ball of dough and attacks it in frustration with the rolling pin. It’s a pretty violent noise, the sound of wood slamming the dough into the granite countertop, but he stops after a few passes.

"Now the dough’s tearing."

"Maybe it’s too warm. Put it back in the fridge for ten minutes."

Gathering the dough back into a ball with his metal fist, Bucky gives him a slow, steely glare. “You just have all the answers, don’t you?”

Steve hides a smile. “And stop beating it so hard. You’ve gotta know your own strength with that arm, Buck. The dough only tore on you on the left side.”

Bucky covers the dough in cling wrap and keeps glaring. On his way to the fridge he grabs a handful of powdered sugar and flings it at Steve in irritation.

Steve isn’t quick enough to dodge and it gets all over his face and neck and the front of his shirt. He tries hard not to laugh. He gets a kick out of exasperating Bucky.

"I’d tell you to lick that off, but I doubt it’d taste very good."

Bucky slams the fridge. “I’m not licking anything until you apologize for this horrible idea.”

"Oh, come on, Buck," Steve pats him on the ass. "You’ll get the hang of it. You just gotta keep trying."

Bucky’s metal fingers twitch and Steve can see he would like to throttle him.

He waits ten minutes to roll the dough out again. Bucky takes it in balls small enough for only one cookie this time. When he bakes them, they puff up a little bit, but they’re salvageable.

Steve’s done sifting the sugar and mixing the icing with milk and vanilla. He divides it up and colors some green and some red. Bucky peers at it, waiting for the cookies to cool.

"Isn’t that a little thick?"

Steve lifts a spoonful of the red and watches it drip back into the bowl. “The recipe says when the drips takes seven seconds to disappear into the rest, it’s thick enough.”

He gets the clear pastry bag fitted with the plastic decorating tip and how the hell do you put the stuff in there without smearing it all around the edges and all over your hands? Steve manages to get at least half of his scoops into the bag and twists, his hands red and sticky. He squeezes, feeling the stuff harden on his skin. He squeezes and nothing comes through the opening in the tip at the end of the bag.

Bucky is giving him the ‘I told you so’ look. Maybe counting “one one thousand, two one thousand…” wasn’t the way to go. Swallowing his pride, Steve looks up at him. “Uh… which do you think is stronger, me or your arm? because it’s gonna take a lot of force to get this out.”

Bucky rolls his eyes. “You’re gonna have to save your own ass this time. I’ve got more cookies to roll.”

Steve takes the icing out of the bag and adds more milk to thin it. He puts it back in the bag and he’s thinned it too much because it drips out of the tip without any squeezing at all. He takes it out yet again to thicken it with more sugar and now the icing is an ugly salmon pink.

He’s pretty sure Bucky would laugh at him, except he’s not doing any better. While the second batch of cookies came out all right, the next one is puffed up and distorted all over again—and burnt, where Bucky’s rolled it too thin.

There’s powdered sugar and hardened red icing and bits of smashed cookie dough all over the counter. To make it worse, Steve can’t squeeze anything out of the icing bag anymore because the stuff has hardened over the hole in the tip.

He might be a super soldier, but his back hurts from bending down and Bucky looks on the verge of throwing a cookie sheet across the room.

"Break time," Bucky declares, and it’s not a request.

They flop on the couch. There’s cookie dough mashed into Bucky’s metal hand and Steve is smearing sugar and red icing on the cushions. He doesn’t care, he’s too tired. He puts his feet on the coffee table and grabs the Starkpad.

"Maybe the internet has some ideas."

"Yeah," Bucky grumbles. “‘Go to the store’."

Pointedly ignoring that, Steve pokes around online and they end up watching Youtube for an hour. Bucky puts his feet up and leans close and they stare in fascination as women young and old effortlessly color and decorate cookies like tiny pieces of art, put them on sticks, and make whole bouquets out of them.

The more Bucky watches, the more his expression goes a little sad.

"What?" Steve asks, though he thinks he knows.

Bucky looks a little embarrassed. “I want my mom. Her cookies would have come out perfect.”

It’s a sobering thought.

"Yeah," Steve nods. "My mother’s would have too. Guess they’re up there laughing at us."

Not in the mood to stay gloomy, Bucky leans in and licks a little powdered sugar from Steve’s jaw. “Or shocked and horrifed by the kind of stuff we do.”

Smiling, Steve grabs his hand and nibbles dough off one metal finger. He thinks about his mother often, but he tries not to think about _that._


End file.
